


And I just sit in silence.

by Lauren_is_a_moron



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Plot Twist, kinda angsty, kinda sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 23:22:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6304219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauren_is_a_moron/pseuds/Lauren_is_a_moron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe Phil was listening to static the whole time.<br/>Maybe his favorite DJ Dan Howell's voice wasn't real after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I just sit in silence.

“And that was Sing, by Caleb Chance!” his voice is smooth and I can almost imagine the twist of the smirk on his lips. I’d never seen the guy, but his voice- I’d already fell in love with it.

Yet another song I didn’t know. Dan always played the oldies. Songs even Chris didn’t recognise when I sang them out of tune to him, seeing if he remembered a lyric or a band Dan mentioned. But he always shook his head with a smirk. “You do realize you listen to the some shitty pirate or private radio station, right?”

When I tried to show him the show once, when I gave him a lift back from work, he complained that all he could hear was static. “Are you deaf?!” I would laugh, pretty sure he was having me on.

I’m still tapping my feet to the beat, and there’s a huge dorky smile on my face. It was always present when Dan Howell was on air. It didn’t matter what songs he played, he always managed to make up for the awful pop-songs which were requested by thirteen year old fans. He always seemed to keep me from switching over the station. I was a huge fan of 101.12FM. It was an indie station, not many of my colleagues knew much about it when I told them about their main presenter- Dan Howell, the twenty-something sarcastic guy who took control of the airwaves every Monday afternoon, when I was on my way back from work.

“Okay, the request lines still open!” Dan’s voice booms out of my car stereo, and I grip the steering wheel, feeling my chest tighten in excitement. Maybe he got my request this time? I eyed my phone sitting in the glove compartment, dead as a doornail. Chris teased me at work, since I’d texted the show around twenty times. Though for some reasons the texts didn’t go through. I shrug my shoulders, maybe feeling a little disappointed, but I turn my gaze back to the road. It’s not an incredibly busy day- it’s a Thursday night, and the March sky is slowly turning a light purple. I’d watched the sunset with a stupid smile on my face, as Dan had played some soppy 80’s song. “What even is this show?” Chris had sat on my desk at work earlier today when he should have been working. Though Chris wasn’t the ‘work’ type. He preferred to stalk me around the office, occasionally dragging around the new intern, PJ around. “It’s nothing,” I’d muttered, draining the last dregs of my coffee. The day had been going slow, and I was eagerly awaiting 4:00. The time when Dan came on-air.

“Nothing?” Chris had grinned, rolling his eyes at me. “It’s your favourite show!” he’d hopped off my desk and turned his back to me. “Why don’t you just call in?” he’d shrugged his shoulders, and he mustn’t have noticed my heart-beat accelerate, and maybe there was a stupid grin appearing on my face. Chris was right. I’d never called in. I hadn’t even googled the damn show. I told myself every day I would. I wanted to know what Dan looked like. I wanted to see his smirk when he played Allstar, one of his running jokes. I wanted to see what he looked like- what his colour his hair was, and if his eyes were bright blue, or maybe green. Maybe they were a deep, deep hazel. I sigh, coming back to the present. Chris’s question is still in the back of my head, and I eye my phone. I remember stuffing my car-charger in the back seat for some road-trip me some of my work colleagues went on last month. Ben had refused to go if there was no access to the internet. So I’d made sure there was a spare charger down the backseat. I jump a little when Dan lets out a laugh, and I frown, sitting up a little straighter. What was he laughing at? I wondered if my radio had a rewind function.

“We have a request from….Lily, with….Smells like Teenage spirit!” I can almost see his grin, when he lets out an excited squeak. “I love this song!” I hear the opening guitar twangs to Teen Spirit, and my own mouth stretches into a grin. I roll my window down and start to nod my head to the beat, mouthing the words slightly, letting my black fringe bob up and down. I notice a passer-by in a Red Vauxhall- a middle aged women with greying hair and a whiney kid in the back-seat. I catch her stare, and stop nodding my head to the music. Her wide-open mouth and frightened eyes ruin my good mood, and I slide my window back up, gripping the steering wheel with both hands and gritting my teeth. What was her problem? Am I not allowed to blast Nirvana and have a sing-along?

I suddenly have the most unbearable urge to call into the show, and tell Dan. My left hand is grabbing the sleek edges of my phone, before I really know what I’m doing. My phone is dead, right?

“Jess was totally nodding her head to that,” Dan is laughing at his producer, Jess. And I can’t help smiling, my foul mood seeming to disperse. “I was!” Jess’s laugh crackles through the speaker and mergers with Dan’s. For a second their laughter turns to static, and, getting a sick feeling, I fiddle with the plastic knob on the stereo.

It was an old thing anyway. I manage to tune back in, breathing out a sigh of relief, and find the station playing some oldie eighties bullshit. I turn it down slightly, rolling my eyes when the female singer gave the chorus her everything. I swore her voice broke. When Dan spoke into the microphone over the song, all I could hear were Jess’s laughter, and the rest of his show’s producers. Dan himself sounded like he was on the floor. “That voice crack?” his own voice splintered into static as he cackled and I laughed along. He seemed to get over it though, because then sounding sober, he cleared his throat. “Right, okay, next we have the local news with Jamie redwood!” an Indent played, and I let myself relax into my car seat, idly turning on a junction. I loved Jamie Redwood’s news bulletin as much as Dan’s show. The two of them made me laugh so much. Dan was almost always taking the piss out of Jamie’s clothing choice. “And today, Jamie has on a bright yellow polo shirt and jean shorts!” Dan could be heard in the studio as Jamie read out the local news. Though I could barely get any of it.

“It’s going to be sunny, tomorrow! With- KRSHHHSHSHSHHSHSHS KRSKKKRSHHHHSSHHHHHH-“Jamie’s voice completely disappears, and I frowned, hitting the stereo a few times. “Come on you stupid thing,” I grumble to myself. My journey from work to my flat was nearly over, and yes, I was getting agitated because my favourite show wasn’t working. But everyone had something they loved- enjoyed. And mine was a crackly radio station with its sarcastic and adorable afternoon DJ.

“Did you see what Renee Zellwenger wore last night at the- KRHSHSHSHSHHHHHSHSHHH-“Jamie’s voice falls into static once again, and I bite back a groan. After listening to static for at least a minute and a half, the station eventually comes back. This time Dan was back on the microphone, talking about Spider Man. “I thought it was brilliant,” he says matter-of-factly, and I laugh a little. “Have you seen Deadpool?” I smirk, as if he’s sitting right next to me. He continues, with his usual excited half-yell, which almost always set my stomach into knots. “I think it was a great sequel!” he’s arguing something with Jess and Jamie, and I fail to realize what was wrong. I nod along to their little disagreement- laughing at Jamie’s personal opinion, which had to be censored. I was reaching home, I could feel it. Empty lanes became familiar neighbourhoods, and I slowed the car down slightly- wanting to get the last minutes of the show. Just so I could go home happy.

“I’ll call in tomorrow,” I linger in traffic, wishing for once, that the roads were overrun with cars, and it was city chaos. But it was easy to get back onto my road. And as I was parking into my garage, I heard Dan’s normal speaking tone grow suddenly loud and frightened. “What was that?!” he yells, and my heart seems to stop. The radio crackles, and I swear I hear Jess cry out. “Shit!” Dan’s voice is suddenly very, very scared, and he’s not speaking into the microphone anymore. I find myself frozen in my seat. And then there are the unmistakable sounds of gunshots. So loud. So piercing that I slam my hands over my ears, feeling tears prick my eyes. “Get- get help!” Dan’s voice- I can hear it, but only vaguely. I imagine him lying on the floor with his arms over his head in fright, trying to hide, trying not to breathe. I don’t even know what he looks like.

“Get help!” Dan’s words- even if they are being screamed at his colleagues, they seem to register in my mind, and before I know what I’m consciously doing, I’m grabbing my dead-phone. My hands are shaking as I force it on and the screen flashes. It’s on 3%. I stay in my car, though I want to yell for help. It was a local station, but surely people around knew what was happening. However when I dared look out of the window, all I saw was the early evening commute I was so used too. Two school girls walking side-by-side laughing, a young mother carrying two heavy loads of shopping whilst pushing a baby in a baby-pink pram.

“Hello, you’ve called Emergency Services, 999?” the women’s voice startles me, and I try to block out the blood-curdling screams still coming from the radio. I want to turn it off. But how could I? Dan. Oh god, Dan is still in there.

“Sir?” the woman says, and I try and force myself to speak without bringing up my latest meal. “Yes!” I yell, my voice is broken, because I’m only half listening to her. I’m listening out for Dan. Though all I can hear a ear-splitting gunshot after gunshot, making my ears ring, making my eyes sting and tears run down my cheeks.

“There’s- there’s a-“ I force myself to take a deep breath when the women tells me to calm down. “There’s a shooting- I..It’s at a r- radio station,” I stammer and stumble over my words, but the women seems to understand me. Her voice is stern. “Sir? Sir, please calm down. Could you tell me which one? Is it local?”

I nod, and then forget I’m talking to her on the phone. “Y- Yes, I-it’s 101.12FM!” I cry out, cursing myself mentally for not knowing the name of Dan’s show. The woman doesn’t answer for a few seconds, and I press the corners of my phone deeper into left ear with frustration. “Are you still there?!” I yell. “Look, there’s a shooting going on, and I can’t- I can’t hear anybody anymore!” my voice is a sob now, and I’m shaking badly. I was right. I could still hear the gunshots- but they were fading into static. I hadn’t heard Dan, Jess of Jamie in ages. My heart leapt. The woman was still silent. I lost it. “PLEASE! I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING!” I yell. I’m knelt on my seat now, and I can feel the strange looks I get from passers-by. I want to yell at them, scream at them that something is wrong, and I want to strangle the police women because she wasn’t doing her job.

“Sir?” her voice is soft, and somehow it calms me, even if it’s through the phone. The calmness of her tone confuses as well as infuriates me. “Are you sending someone?!” I cry, and she cuts me off before I start to scream that how could she possibly sit there and talk to me calmly as innocent people were being shot at.

“Sir…I- I’m not sure how to explain this,” her own voice is shaking, and that’s when I realize something wrong. Something wrong about her voice, about the constant static, about…about Spider Man 2…

“It was 2005…” she begins, and she sounds like she’s reading off a computer screen. Maybe she is. I’ve stopped crying, and my face is pressed into the leather of my seat. I don’t want to hear it.

“Sir…the station 101.12 has been off-air for eleven years,” she says softly, and I feel my heart stop, my breath quicken as I start to protest. “That’s- that’s insane!” I yell back. “I was just- I was just-“ I turn to my car stereo and stare at it. Ominous blue numbers flash on the screen reading 101.12. But there’s just static. I wait for a yell or gunshot, but there was nothing. Just complete static.

“Daniel Howell,” she says quietly, and just at the mention of his name, I start to cry. Because the static is deafening, yet the women’s voice still pierces through. “He was the twenty two year old DJ who owned SmileFM,” she continues. And her voice breaks. Because I know what she’s going to say.

“Get help!” Dan’s frightened yell replays in my mind. “Somebody, call the police!” I wipe my face and stare into the leather of my seat as the women speak. And I tell myself I won’t cry.

“Dan and his producers- sound technicians, everyone who was in that studio that day….they were shot dead by three masked gunmen.” The police-women says, and I’ve heard enough. She starts to say something, maybe about my name or if I’m taking anything- but I hang up and instead lean back in my car-seat and stare at nothing, really. Just at how the sky was a deep purple-black now, and when I peered, I spotted stars scattered in random places.

The station is static. I stare at the screen silently. It always was static.

I reach forward, click the stereo off, and let my head rest against the smooth leather.

And I just sit in silence.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry omg


End file.
